Ireland moves up to 15th place in the global competitiveness rankings

News > Ireland moves up to 15th place in the global competitiveness rankings

Press Release
22 May 2014

(May 22nd) IDA Ireland, today welcomed the news that the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014 puts Ireland at number 15 in overall global competitiveness rankings, and first for availability of skilled labour in the world.

Ireland has moved up nine places in overall competitiveness over the last four years. Ireland achieved top ranking position in a number of important sub factors as follows:-

1st for availability of skilled labour

1st for flexibility and adaptability of workforce

1st for attitudes to globalisation

1st for investment incentives

Ireland improved its ranking in all of the four competitiveness factors in the survey:-

Economic Performance an increase of 7 places to 19th overall
Government Efficiency up 3 places to 14th
Business Efficiency up 9 places to 4th
Infrastructure up 2 places to 20th

More than half the executives surveyed for the report identified a competitive tax regime, skilled workforce, business friendly environment, and high educational levels as key attractiveness factors in Ireland.

Welcoming the results, Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland said: ``Ireland’s ranking of 15th in the overall rankings in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook is excellent news for Ireland’s foreign direct investment proposition. Ireland in recent years has regained valuable competitiveness, while continuing to offer a strong skills base to prospective companies looking to invest here. This has helped to deliver a very strong FDI performance by Ireland.’’

The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook
The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) is reputed as being the worldwide reference point on the competitiveness of nations, ranking and analyzing how an economy manages the totality of its resources and competencies to increase the prosperity of its population. It has been published since 1989 and compares the competitiveness of 60 nations on the basis of over 300 criteria. It is based on hard data statistics and a business executives' opinion survey.

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